Anca Biris

“She stubs out her cigarette in the brown glass ashtray, then settles herself against him, ear to his chest. She likes to hear his voice this way, as if it begins not in his throat but in his body, like a hum or a growl, or like a voice speaking from deep underground. Like the blood moving through her own heart: a word, a word, a word.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

“We'll choose knowledge no matter what, we'll maim ourselves in the process, we'll stick our hands into the flames for it if necessary. Curiosity is not our only motive; love or grief or despair or hatred is what drives us on. We'll spy relentlessly on the dead; we'll open their letters, we'll read their journals, we'll go through their trash, hoping for a hint, a final word, an explanation, from those who have deserted us--who've left us holding the bag, which is often a good deal emptier than we'd supposed.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

“You lose your immortality when you lose your memory.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle

“Sympathy from strangers can be ruinous.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin